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The Rules of Pacers Digest

Hello everyone,

Whether your are a long standing forum member or whether you have just registered today, it's a good idea to read and review the rules below so that you have a very good idea of what to expect when you come to Pacers Digest.

A quick note to new members: Your posts will not immediately show up when you make them. An administrator has to approve at least your first post before the forum software will later upgrade your account to the status of a fully-registered member. This usually happens within a couple of hours or so after your post(s) is/are approved, so you may need to be a little patient at first.

Why do we do this? So that it's more difficult for spammers (be they human or robot) to post, and so users who are banned cannot immediately re-register and start dousing people with verbal flames.

Below are the rules of Pacers Digest. After you have read them, you will have a very good sense of where we are coming from, what we expect, what we don't want to see, and how we react to things.

Rule #1

Pacers Digest is intended to be a place to discuss basketball without having to deal with the kinds of behaviors or attitudes that distract people from sticking with the discussion of the topics at hand. These unwanted distractions can come in many forms, and admittedly it can sometimes be tricky to pin down each and every kind that can rear its ugly head, but we feel that the following examples and explanations cover at least a good portion of that ground and should at least give people a pretty good idea of the kinds of things we actively discourage:

"Anyone who __________ is a liar / a fool / an idiot / a blind homer / has their head buried in the sand / a blind hater / doesn't know basketball / doesn't watch the games"

"People with intelligence will agree with me when I say that __________"

"Only stupid people think / believe / do ___________"

"I can't wait to hear something from PosterX when he/she sees that **insert a given incident or current event that will have probably upset or disappointed PosterX here**"

"He/she is just delusional"

"This thread is stupid / worthless / embarrassing"

"I'm going to take a moment to point and / laugh at PosterX / GroupOfPeopleY who thought / believed *insert though/belief here*"

"Remember when PosterX said OldCommentY that no longer looks good? "

In general, if a comment goes from purely on topic to something 'ad hominem' (personal jabs, personal shots, attacks, flames, however you want to call it, towards a person, or a group of people, or a given city/state/country of people), those are most likely going to be found intolerable.

We also dissuade passive aggressive behavior. This can be various things, but common examples include statements that are basically meant to imply someone is either stupid or otherwise incapable of holding a rational conversation. This can include (but is not limited to) laughing at someone's conclusions rather than offering an honest rebuttal, asking people what game they were watching, or another common problem is Poster X will say "that player isn't that bad" and then Poster Y will say something akin to "LOL you think that player is good". We're not going to tolerate those kinds of comments out of respect for the community at large and for the sake of trying to just have an honest conversation.

Now, does the above cover absolutely every single kind of distraction that is unwanted? Probably not, but you should by now have a good idea of the general types of things we will be discouraging. The above examples are meant to give you a good feel for / idea of what we're looking for. If something new or different than the above happens to come along and results in the same problem (that being, any other attitude or behavior that ultimately distracts from actually just discussing the topic at hand, or that is otherwise disrespectful to other posters), we can and we will take action to curb this as well, so please don't take this to mean that if you managed to technically avoid saying something exactly like one of the above examples that you are then somehow off the hook.

That all having been said, our goal is to do so in a generally kind and respectful way, and that doesn't mean the moment we see something we don't like that somebody is going to be suspended or banned, either. It just means that at the very least we will probably say something about it, quite possibly snipping out the distracting parts of the post in question while leaving alone the parts that are actually just discussing the topics, and in the event of a repeating or excessive problem, then we will start issuing infractions to try to further discourage further repeat problems, and if it just never seems to improve, then finally suspensions or bans will come into play. We would prefer it never went that far, and most of the time for most of our posters, it won't ever have to.

A slip up every once and a while is pretty normal, but, again, when it becomes repetitive or excessive, something will be done. Something occasional is probably going to be let go (within reason), but when it starts to become habitual or otherwise a pattern, odds are very good that we will step in.

There's always a small minority that like to push people's buttons and/or test their own boundaries with regards to the administrators, and in the case of someone acting like that, please be aware that this is not a court of law, but a private website run by people who are simply trying to do the right thing as they see it. If we feel that you are a special case that needs to be dealt with in an exceptional way because your behavior isn't explicitly mirroring one of our above examples of what we generally discourage, we can and we will take atypical action to prevent this from continuing if you are not cooperative with us.

Also please be aware that you will not be given a pass simply by claiming that you were 'only joking,' because quite honestly, when someone really is just joking, for one thing most people tend to pick up on the joke, including the person or group that is the target of the joke, and for another thing, in the event where an honest joke gets taken seriously and it upsets or angers someone, the person who is truly 'only joking' will quite commonly go out of his / her way to apologize and will try to mend fences. People who are dishonest about their statements being 'jokes' do not do so, and in turn that becomes a clear sign of what is really going on. It's nothing new.

In any case, quite frankly, the overall quality and health of the entire forum's community is more important than any one troublesome user will ever be, regardless of exactly how a problem is exhibiting itself, and if it comes down to us having to make a choice between you versus the greater health and happiness of the entire community, the community of this forum will win every time.

Lastly, there are also some posters, who are generally great contributors and do not otherwise cause any problems, who sometimes feel it's their place to provoke or to otherwise 'mess with' that small minority of people described in the last paragraph, and while we possibly might understand why you might feel you WANT to do something like that, the truth is we can't actually tolerate that kind of behavior from you any more than we can tolerate the behavior from them. So if we feel that you are trying to provoke those other posters into doing or saying something that will get themselves into trouble, then we will start to view you as a problem as well, because of the same reason as before: The overall health of the forum comes first, and trying to stir the pot with someone like that doesn't help, it just makes it worse. Some will simply disagree with this philosophy, but if so, then so be it because ultimately we have to do what we think is best so long as it's up to us.

If you see a problem that we haven't addressed, the best and most appropriate course for a forum member to take here is to look over to the left of the post in question. See underneath that poster's name, avatar, and other info, down where there's a little triangle with an exclamation point (!) in it? Click that. That allows you to report the post to the admins so we can definitely notice it and give it a look to see what we feel we should do about it. Beyond that, obviously it's human nature sometimes to want to speak up to the poster in question who has bothered you, but we would ask that you try to refrain from doing so because quite often what happens is two or more posters all start going back and forth about the original offending post, and suddenly the entire thread is off topic or otherwise derailed. So while the urge to police it yourself is understandable, it's best to just report it to us and let us handle it. Thank you!

All of the above is going to be subject to a case by case basis, but generally and broadly speaking, this should give everyone a pretty good idea of how things will typically / most often be handled.

Rule #2

If the actions of an administrator inspire you to make a comment, criticism, or express a concern about it, there is a wrong place and a couple of right places to do so.

The wrong place is to do so in the original thread in which the administrator took action. For example, if a post gets an infraction, or a post gets deleted, or a comment within a larger post gets clipped out, in a thread discussing Paul George, the wrong thing to do is to distract from the discussion of Paul George by adding your off topic thoughts on what the administrator did.

The right places to do so are:

A) Start a thread about the specific incident you want to talk about on the Feedback board. This way you are able to express yourself in an area that doesn't throw another thread off topic, and this way others can add their two cents as well if they wish, and additionally if there's something that needs to be said by the administrators, that is where they will respond to it.

B) Send a private message to the administrators, and they can respond to you that way.

If this is done the wrong way, those comments will be deleted, and if it's a repeating problem then it may also receive an infraction as well.

Rule #3

If a poster is bothering you, and an administrator has not or will not deal with that poster to the extent that you would prefer, you have a powerful tool at your disposal, one that has recently been upgraded and is now better than ever: The ability to ignore a user.

When you ignore a user, you will unfortunately still see some hints of their existence (nothing we can do about that), however, it does the following key things:

A) Any post they make will be completely invisible as you scroll through a thread.

B) The new addition to this feature: If someone QUOTES a user you are ignoring, you do not have to read who it was, or what that poster said, unless you go out of your way to click on a link to find out who it is and what they said.

To utilize this feature, from any page on Pacers Digest, scroll to the top of the page, look to the top right where it says 'Settings' and click that. From the settings page, look to the left side of the page where it says 'My Settings', and look down from there until you see 'Edit Ignore List' and click that. From here, it will say 'Add a Member to Your List...' Beneath that, click in the text box to the right of 'User Name', type in or copy & paste the username of the poster you are ignoring, and once their name is in the box, look over to the far right and click the 'Okay' button. All done!

Rule #4

Regarding infractions, currently they carry a value of one point each, and that point will expire in 31 days. If at any point a poster is carrying three points at the same time, that poster will be suspended until the oldest of the three points expires.

Rule #5

When you share or paste content or articles from another website, you must include the URL/link back to where you found it, who wrote it, and what website it's from. Said content will be removed if this doesn't happen.

An example:

If I copy and paste an article from the Indianapolis Star website, I would post something like this:

We cannot tolerate illegal videos on Pacers Digest. This means do not share any links to them, do not mention any websites that host them or link to them, do not describe how to find them in any way, and do not ask about them. Posts doing anything of the sort will be removed, the offenders will be contacted privately, and if the problem becomes habitual, you will be suspended, and if it still persists, you will probably be banned.

The legal means of watching or listening to NBA games are NBA League Pass Broadband (for US, or for International; both cost money) and NBA Audio League Pass (which is free). Look for them on NBA.com.

Rule #7

Provocative statements in a signature, or as an avatar, or as the 'tagline' beneath a poster's username (where it says 'Member' or 'Administrator' by default, if it is not altered) are an unwanted distraction that will more than likely be removed on sight. There can be shades of gray to this, but in general this could be something political or religious that is likely going to provoke or upset people, or otherwise something that is mean-spirited at the expense of a poster, a group of people, or a population.

It may or may not go without saying, but this goes for threads and posts as well, particularly when it's not made on the off-topic board (Market Square).

We do make exceptions if we feel the content is both innocuous and unlikely to cause social problems on the forum (such as wishing someone a Merry Christmas or a Happy Easter), and we also also make exceptions if such topics come up with regards to a sports figure (such as the Lance Stephenson situation bringing up discussions of domestic abuse and the law, or when Jason Collins came out as gay and how that lead to some discussion about gay rights).

However, once the discussion seems to be more/mostly about the political issues instead of the sports figure or his specific situation, the thread is usually closed.

Rule #8

We prefer self-restraint and/or modesty when making jokes or off topic comments in a sports discussion thread. They can be fun, but sometimes they derail or distract from a topic, and we don't want to see that happen. If we feel it is a problem, we will either delete or move those posts from the thread.

Rule #9

Generally speaking, we try to be a "PG-13" rated board, and we don't want to see sexual content or similarly suggestive content. Vulgarity is a more muddled issue, though again we prefer things to lean more towards "PG-13" than "R". If we feel things have gone too far, we will step in.

Rule #10

We like small signatures, not big signatures. The bigger the signature, the more likely it is an annoying or distracting signature.

Rule #11

Do not advertise anything without talking about it with the administrators first. This includes advertising with your signature, with your avatar, through private messaging, and/or by making a thread or post.

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A real loss to the Pacers fan family, the poster known as Sixthman and Pacerfan (realGM) has passed away

Comment

Re: A Loss at RealGM...pacerfan has passed away (update: this was "sixthman")

Bardon, John D.January 15, 2008

John "Don" Douglas Bardon 65, Indianapolis, died January 13, 2008 of Melanoma. The son of John Alexander Bardon, Jr. and Angeline Ave Bardon, Don was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota on October 28, 1942. He was raised in Clinton, Indiana, graduating from Schulte High School in Terre Haute, IN. Don was senior class president at Indiana State University. He received a BA from Indiana University and a Certificate in Public Management from IUPUI's SPEA graduate program. After college, he worked at WTWO-TV and WTHI Radio-TV Terre Haute as a writer, producer and investigative reporter. He then entered into politics and government, working for U.S. Senator Vance Hartke, Indiana Secretary of State Larry Conrad and Marion County Sheriff Larry Broderick. He served as Executive Secretary of the Highway Users Federation in the early 1970's, coordinating press and governmental relations. In 1978, Don was hired as Executive Vice President of the Indiana Jaycees and Jaycees Charitable Foundation. During his seven year tenure, he was named the outstanding national Jaycee Executive three years. Don opened his first Subway restaurant in 1986. Growing the family business to five stores over the past 20 years, his managers, staff and customers were some of his most loyal friends. Don spent one year teaching at St. Michael School, where he met his wife, Marilyn. They were married at St. Thomas Aquinas Church, Indianapolis on July 8, 1972. He continued to serve in many volunteer capacities at St. Michael Church throughout the years, receiving the Msgr. Albert Busald and St. John Bosco awards from the Archdiocese for his involvement in the CYO. He is survived by his sister, Laura Bardon; wife, Marilyn Wiwi Bardon; son, Jeb (Kristie Carter); daughter, Elizabeth (Tyron Hunt) and grandchildren, Trey and Emma Hunt, Zoe and Marina Bardon. Visitation will be at St. Michael Church, 3552 West 30th Street, Wednesday, January 16 from 4 to 8 p.m. Rite of Christian Burial will be at 10 a.m. on Thursday. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to St. Michael School or Cardinal Ritter High School. Arrangements by Flanner & Buchanan Funeral Center - Washington Park North

In fact in the award nominations I nominated Sixthman as someone who I wanted to post more often - this was in 2005

Unclebuck, when I first started posting at PD, I once thought that you and pacerfan might be the same person based on your style of posting. When I asked him on realgm, he said no, but that he was honored that I would compare to him someone with such great knowledge and dedication to the Pacers. He really seemed to like the idea that I would compare him to you. Just a cool little story about pacerfan/sixthman, that relates to PD.

Comment

Re: A real loss to the Pacers fan family, the poster known as Sixthman and Pacerfan (realGM) has passed away

I posted this on RealGM and thought some of you may be interested:

Some of you know this and some of you don't, but it was my good fortune to know Don in the world outside of RealGM. Regrettably, I couldn't claim him as more than an acquaintance in real life. His wife was my 8th grade teach at St. Michael's. We also had a connection through my sister and brother-in-law, both of whom are active in St. Michael's parish, through which my brother-in-law came to work with Don for a number of years in Don's Subway franchises.

I had known from the moment my sister called me with the news that I would be going to pay my respects to Don and his family. However, the outpouring of genuine emotion from cyber-friends and strangers alike made it obvious that I had the opportunity to represent the community at his viewing. I don't know if many were aware of that there were pacerfan threads wishing condolences on the Lakers board, the Raptors board, and Pacers Digest. All told, there have been 187 posts on 18 pages at RealGM and another 27 posts at Pacers Digest.

The viewing was held at the Church at St. Michael's in Indianapolis from 4 to 8 yesterday afternoon. I arrived at about 5 minutes after 4 pm to find the parking lot filling up. When I went in the main entrance, I found the line already stretching from the altar all the way back to the front door. In the church itself, they had about 8 or 10 easels with giant posterboards on which they had lovingly put pictures of Don at various stages of his life. The first one you came to had a picture of pf in his Pacer sweatshirt. All of the pictures told the story of a good sports fan, passionate about Pacers and Colts and Cardinals, a good family man, passionate about his loved ones, and basically, just a good, good man. You would need only to see the ever-present 1,000-watt smile to understand that this was a man who understood how blessed he really was.

I stood in line, largely a stranger to most there, listening to the conversations going on around me. I was awestruck at the impact Don had and on the wealth of people whose lives he had touched. My wait was a little less than an hour, and by the time I left, the line had more than doubled in size, winding down into the basement of the church, and the parking lot and streets were filled to overflowing with cars.

I got to spend a brief moment or two with his son, Jeb, and his wife. I offered my personal condolences, then told them of the reaction here on RealGM and on PD. Both spoke of how much he loved coming here, and his wife asked that I get her these posts. When she sees these, it will be just more evidence of the wealth of kindness and decency that Don brought out in others.

As I left the church, I felt the sense of loss keenly. Oddly, it wasn't the loss of his presence that I regretted most. It was the lost opportunity I had to share more in his life. Those who knew and loved Don are hurting today, but they know they are the lucky ones.

pacerfan's last post was on November 9, a little before 9 AM. He last visited the site on December 30.